Have you experienced weight gain after dieting hard for several weeks or months? If you want to learn why you gain weight even when eating foods that are good for you, continue reading! Weight gain and weight loss is very simple. If you eat more calories than your body is burning, you will gain weight. If you eat fewer calories than your body burns, you'll lose weight. Simple, right?

Many people only worry about weight loss when going on a diet. They believe that diet alone is the best way to reach their goals. There are too many people out there who are led to believe that weight loss is what they want. I'm here to tell you that weight loss is not important! Fat loss is what you want. When people only worry about losing weight, they see success as the number on the scale decreasing. This is not a good way to measure success.

Success on any weight loss diet should be measured by the amount of fat you lose and the amount of muscle that you don't lose. A weight loss diet alone may help you lose weight fast, but guess what? You're losing muscle along the way. Muscle burns calories! When you lose muscle, you lose something that only helps you reach your goals. You do not want to lose muscle.

Now, we come back to the question concerning why people gain weight after coming off a weight loss diet. The weight loss turns out to be both muscle and fat. When the person loses muscle, the body will be burning fewer calories throughout the day. The person begins eating good foods, but eats more calories than their body is burning because they have less muscle than they had before the weight loss diet. As we learned earlier, weight gain occurs because the person is eating more calories than their body is burning. The loss in muscle causes the weight gain!

You now probably want to know how to lose weight without losing muscle. Focus on fat loss and not weight loss. In order to keep as much muscle as possible or even build new muscle while losing weight, you'll need to undertake a complete weight lifting program. Weight lifting will help you hold onto muscle and build muscle while losing weight. You keep the muscle and you keep the weight off after your diet! You look even better than ever with all your muscle and decreased fat levels. You are healthier.

A complete weight lifting program will consist of weight lifting, stretching, diet, and cardio. A complete program will get you to your goals at light speed compared to diet alone. You'll be amazed at the progress you make. Lift weights to build muscle, stretch to prevent injury and increase recovery from workouts, diet for fat loss, and perform cardiovascular exercise for fat loss and health reasons.